Re: problems with Outlining in Word2003 Re: Can Microsoft be prosecute

It was Sunday, too hot to go out for a walk and I was bored!

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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grammatim wrote:
How is that a matter for helping you use Word? Save it for your blog,
which no one actually has to read.

Graham answered the question -- just as I expected, with the
information you need -- while I was composing my message. I'm
surprised that he had the patience to wade through all the verbiage to
discover what you were actually asking.

On Jun 29, 9:23 am, stevenjs <steve...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The damage is already done.

Which part of the 5000 words don't you get? All computing humanity is
hostage.

now that you've changed the title, can you answer the question?

"grammatim" wrote:
Are you a columnist, or perhaps a blogger, required to turn out 5000
words per issue, whether you have something to say or not? (I must
say, that appears to apply to Vanity Fair's James Wolcott every few
months.)

I think your question is about managing Outline styles in Word2003,
and the MVPs here are incredibly helpful -- you're not exactly the
first user to have problems with outlines -- and will gladly refer
you to useful documents that were posted five years ago dealing with
exactly these problems.

But you have to indicate in your subject line that you actually
have a question about using Word.

On Jun 29, 8:04 am, stevenjs <steve...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greetings,

Don't let the headings throw you, as a usability analyst and
interface designer practicing here in NYC, I assure you they are
understated.

I have found myself for the past two months in a virtual "dream
job," in every respect that is, except that I am forced to use MS
Word 2003 for documentation. The company is finally about to
replace this Gorgon with software that does not subject its users
to "software terrorism," but it has been a harrowing time indeed.

Perhaps I am ignorant of some secret trick for turning off all of
the terror tactics which MS Word employs, though not for want of
searching its so-called "Help." If so, please tell me how to stop
ALL of MS Word's automatic "you don't know what you want so I'm
going to slap your face and shove what I think you want down your
throat" features.

You see, I am creating multiple outlines with screen shots and
text. And Word seems to have a perverse, sinister and sadistic
mind of its own. I try to separate the end of an outline, and
restart it as a new outline. Word then spends five minutes
destroying every outline in the document, then will not allow an
undo, destroying the document.

What ever could its designers have been thinking? Was it ever even
actually "designed" by anyone? If such criminally obtrusive and
unusable software is indeed a creature of design, and the world's
adoption of it as a word processing standard is slavish obeisance
to OS monopoly, then truly, de profundis, I despair of humanity.

I use the word "terror" advisedly. I make a change to one of eight
or ten separate outlines, say increasing the indent to the next
outline level, and whoa, the hour glass pointer appears and
persists interminably while I wait helplessly to see whether the
software will destroy all my work up to that moment, result in
unacceptable delays, earn disfavor higher up, cost me my dream
job, render me unable to make monthly payments, and culminate in
financial ruin, homelessness, and death.

Though by no means predictable, most often the result of one
keystroke, like a tab in the outline, when Word finally does
render its twisted idea of my idea, is to transform the entire 8
or 10 outlines into one demon outline with fff) at my tab
insertion point instead of the a) I expected and deserved. When
this occurs, many, many times a day, I am jerked and abused
through a gauntlet of emotions ranging from fear, terror, disgust,
rage, and speechless bewilderment. Again, and again, and again.

Now, it will no longer allow an undo, "too many edits" it
perversely advises, leaving the document destroyed.

Having software yank one's emotional chain is grossly abusive and
arguably criminal, holding you at pointer's gun point while you
wait breathlessly in a paralysis of fear to know your fate is
nothing short of terrorism. Native, all-American terrorism
practiced by one of the country and the world's leading
corporations: Microsoft. In its world-standard Word product.

I discovered, quite by accident, that (in most cases), the Cntrl Z
or the undo command will cause the software to reverse its
fascistic zeal and un-destroy my document, occasionally leaving me
with something akin to what I desired and expected. This is the
terrorist saying, 'well, I didn't actually harm you after all, did
I?' As if terror were not terror if there is no bodily harm.

Now it has escalated to bodily harm, disallowing undo, and
destroying the document permanently.

What disturbs me at least as much is that outrage against this
treatment is not ubiquitous, is in fact absent, though mass
demonstrations in the street would be a most appropriate response
to corporate adoption of this insidious corporate terror.

I dispair of a humanity that could adopt such junkware as a de
facto WP standard, that could allow it to exist at all.

If anyone knows how I can completely disarm the terror this
application is programmed to inflict, please do let me know. I
would be delighted to manually create everything without its
"helpful" destruction.-


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